What's wrong with the Yahoo! News redesign

It's the juxtaposition of the "Most Popular" category with the "World" category. And so you get this:

Most Popular

'Soup Nazi' to Launch Takeout Chain AP - Fri Apr 29, 7:57 PM ET
School Mistakes Huge Burrito for a Weapon AP - Fri Apr 29, 4:08 PM ET
Genetic Mingling Mixes Human, Animal Cells AP - Fri Apr 29, 8:44 PM ET
'Mermaid' Baby Turns 1, Awaits Surgery AP - Fri Apr 29, 8:13 PM ET
Study Links Middle Age Obesity to Dementia AP - Fri Apr 29, 8:12 PM ET

Followed by this:

World

Insurgents Strike Across Iraq, Killing 50 AP - 2 hours, 53 minutes ago
Alleged Zarqawi Tape Threatens New Attacks AP - Fri Apr 29,10:03 PM ET
Putin to Help With Palestinian Security AP - Fri Apr 29,10:04 PM ET
Vietnam Fetes 30 Years Since War's End AP - 2 hours, 7 minutes ago
Italy, U.S. Disagree on Agent's Iraq Death AP - 2 hours, 57 minutes ago

I find it extraordinarily depressing that in the face of insurgent attacks, Palestinian security issues, and the like, the world is, in fact, focused on burritos of mass destruction and mermaid babies. I just really don't want to know what's popular. It's right up there with those USA Today public opinion polls that are always graphically displayed on their front page as pie charts or the like. I mean, I just don't want to know. Which existentialist said, "Hell is other people"? That's pretty much where I'm at with the general public most of the time.

Maybe it's better that way

Via After School Snack comes the news that constant emailing and text messaging result in a 10 point drop in IQ. Among the interesting findings was the discovery that women only decline 5 IQ points, compared to 15 for men, who appear to be not so good at multitasking.

The story puts the decline in perspective by reporting that missing a night's sleep yields a 10 point loss and smoking pot, a 4 point loss. I'm thinking were I not an information junky insomniac who smoked pot daily for years, I'd probably be so god damned smart I'd be unable to function in the world.

Something there is that does not love a wall

Okay, I haven't fallen off the face of the planet. I've been too busy and, frankly, a bit emotionally under the weather. I will spare everyone the details. You can read the memoir when it's written. My insight for the week: love is like crime--you need both motive and opportunity. Sigh.

And changing the subject...

Has everyone seen Heavy Trash's guerrilla art? I love it. They are installing viewing stations outside LA's gated communities (Brentwood, Park La Brea, etc.). I'm thinking this may call for a field trip; though god knows, they're probably gone by now.

Reuters has the story.

There goes the neighborhood

Drivers in Pikesville, Maryland were disrupted this morning as a herd of buffalo meandered onto the road. If I was driving at seven in the morning and a bunch of buffalo wandered into the street, it would really mess with me. My first assumption would not be "oh, a herd of buffalo escaped from a nearby farm," it would be much more related to my own loose grip on reality.

Here are the buffalo, having been corralled. Extreme tennis, I'm thinking:







In other "real" news, it makes me very happy that Bush is getting continued flack on the rape of social security and the Bolton nomination. Though the Repubs' call for "bipartisanship" pisses me off more than I can say. It feels very much like calling a woman a "bitch" or a "cunt" because she objects to you grabbing her tit, you know? And in my present mood that's about the most in depth political commentary I can offer.

Happy Earth Day

From NASA's Visible Earth, we bring you proof of our progress in paving the planet. The pic below shows the extent we have managed to cover the Baltimore/Washington area with asphalt.



NASA explains:

These space-based maps of buildings and paved surfaces, such as roads and parking lots, which are impervious to water, can indicate where large amounts of storm water runs off. Concentrated runoff leads to erosion and elevated discharge of soil and chemicals into rivers, streams, and ground water.

The image above shows the extent of impervious surfaces in and around Washington and Baltimore. Red represents high concentrations of impervious surfaces. Blue represents moderate concentrations and green represents low concentrations of impervious surfaces.

If you're feeling too chipper today, visit the site and browse the gallery of smog, deforestation, and urbanization. Viva la apocalypse.

Pesach

Of course, we have to have a Passover post since it is my favorite holiday. It's probably too late to order any of ChosenCouture's fine gear in time for seder tomorrow night, but it was worth sharing nonetheless.




And for your holiday entertainment, we bring you 50 cent doing the plagues and Jib Jab's hiphop homage to Matzah.

What's in a name?

I'd be laughing too

Bush ordering lunch during the South Carolina leg of his social security tour

Wrong

New CafePress merchandise. It's just wrong, I tell you.

The party of the financiers

Despite ongoing efforts by my friends and family to school me in the more sinister aspects of our government, I find at times I am still too naive to predict the level of venality. Take Bush's comment on the forthcoming bankruptcy laws for instance. This past weekend one of my friends was commenting that credit card companies would now be granting cards to more and more folks who probably shouldn't have them. While I am as disgusted as anyone over this latest "reform," I thought at the time that was perhaps a bit paranoid. And yet...today I read this from Bush:

These commonsense reforms will make the system stronger and better so that more Americans--especially lower-income Americans--have greater access to credit

Interpretation: Now that we've taken away their safety net, we can help scads of the have-nots further impoverish themselves. Sigh.

Okay, I'm going to hide from the world in my all-day meeting now.

Why I don't live in New York

It's too late to enter, but the pictures from Apartment Therapy's Smallest, Coolest Apartment Contest are pretty interesting. The rules: you have to live in NYC (any borough) and your place has to be smaller than 500 square feet.

Let me say if I had to share a 500 square foot place with another person, someone would end up in prison (or in plastic garbage bags stashed under bridges)...it would be a really bad thing....




(Link via Things Magazine)

Heroes of the day

Senators Hagel (Nebraska) and Voinovich (Ohio) for speaking up to delay the Bolton hearing today in the Foreign Relations Committee. I'll applaud any Republican who breaks out of his party's goosestep even for a moment.

True Majority has a petition against Bolton and a very brief media clip (Realmedia and Quicktime) that, for all its brevity I think pretty well captures why this man should not be Ambassador to the UN.

Really Bush's appointees are like some sort of parody aren't they? Ghengis Kahn as Attorney General, Simon Legree as Labor Secretary and so on...

All pope radio, all the time

So apparently all news in the world has ceased save the election of a new pope. This morning, on my way in to work, the entire airwaves had seemingly been hijacked by the Catholics and wanna be's. "New pope...(click)...black smoke...(click)...string the ballots together...(click)...vatican..."

I am clearly the only person on the planet who doesn't really care very much. I mean, it would have been nice to have a liberal pope, in the same sort of way it would be nice to have a benevolent dictator. Yeah, I'm oversimplifying. So sue me.

On a related note, it is reported that John Paul is finding the eternal reward a bit disappointing:

The soul of Pope John Paul, which entered heaven last week following a long illness, expressed confusion and disappointment Saturday, upon learning that the Celestial Kingdom of God to which the departed faithful ascend in the afterlife is significantly less luxurious than the Vatican's Papal Palace, in which the pope spent the past 26 years of his earthly life.

. . .

"Up here, everyone is equal," John Paul II said. "No one has to go through an elaborate bowing ritual when they greet me. And do you know how many times my ring has been kissed since I arrived? None. Up here, I'm mingling with tax collectors, fishermen, and whores. It's just going to take a little getting used to, is all."

Policy by Swift

As usual when I am so busy for several days that I lose track of the world, today when reading the news I had the sad realization that things did not magically improve while I was out of the loop. There's always a small part of me that expects to open the paper and be greeted with a giant "April Fools!" headline topping a story that says--just kidding; we haven't decided torture is okay, we don't really want old people to starve to death, we aren't really bending over all the way for the credit card companies, and so on. Of course, instead I got the news as you know it.

Among the articles from yesterday's paper that I am just reading today were one talking about logging as a possible solution to drought (because those pesky trees drink up so much of the water) and toll roads as a solution to freeway congestion (there was also a suggestion that employers who provide parking for free allow employees to "cash out" that benefit and a suggestion that we privatize public transportation).

Am I the only one who thinks this is an "old lady who swallowed a fly" kind of mentality here? Good god.

Happily beginning tomorrow I go back to a slavish existence for most of the rest of the week. I look forward to reading the newest modest proposals when I rejoin the human race at some point on Saturday. Yeesh.

Signs that I am more stressed out than I think

1. I locked myself out of my apartment last night while shuttling to and from the laundry room.

2. I dreamed that I went down on one knee, marriage proposal-style, to ask George Bush, "Will there ever be a time when we are not at war again?" To which he responded, what-me-worry grin in place, "Not while I'm president."

Yeah.

(As an aside, let me say, as someone in recovery from addiction, it was a real "oh how the mighty have fallen" moment last night when I had to pay someone to help me break into my own apartment.)

And I suppose that all leads me to explain that posting will be sparse for the next week or so. I have a weekend long work event, followed by a week that will have me in meetings most of the day. It's a full-on work period for me. I'll post when I can, but I'm not too optimistic.

Signs you live in a cultural wasteland

When the email from Borders highlighting local events is pro-mo-ing up-coming book signings by both Cheryl Ladd and Brooke Shields.

Let me say that reading Brooke Shields' story of her recovery from postpartum depression ranks right up there with sticking pins in my eyes for ways I am eager to spend my time.

It must be spring...

...because we have been much given to poetry posting here at NMTE lately. Here is one sent to me by a friend that I think is quite lovely.

Failing and Flying

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Jack Gilbert

It's not just for supremacists anymore

From the inestimable yelladog comes the link to Idaho's Resolution 29:

Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Idaho:

WHEREAS, the State of Idaho recognizes the vision, talent and creativity of Jared and Jerusha Hess in the writing and production of "Napoleon Dynamite"; and

. . .

WHEREAS, the Preston High School administration and staff, particularly the cafeteria staff, have enjoyed notoriety and worldwide attention; and
WHEREAS, tater tots figure prominently in this film thus promoting Idaho's most famous export; and
WHEREAS, the friendship between Napoleon and Pedro has furthered multiethnic relationships; and
WHEREAS, Uncle Rico's football skills are a testament to Idaho athletics; and
WHEREAS, Napoleon's bicycle and Kip's skateboard promote better air quality and carpooling as alternatives to fuel-dependent methods of transportation; and
WHEREAS, Rico and Kip's Tupperware sales and Deb's keychains and glamour shots promote entrepreneurism and self-sufficiency in Idaho's small towns; and

. . .

WHEREAS, Napoleon's tetherball dexterity emphasizes the importance of physical education in Idaho public schools; and
WHEREAS, Tina the llama, the chickens with large talons, the 4-H milk cows, and the Honeymoon Stallion showcase Idaho's animal husbandry; and

. . .

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the members of the First Regular Session of the Fifty-eighth Idaho Legislature, the House of Representatives and the Senate concurring therein, that we commend Jared and Jerusha Hess and the City of Preston for showcasing the positive aspects of Idaho's youth, rural culture, education system, athletics, economic prosperity and diversity. . . .

While I have always been a bit frightened of places like Idaho, you've got to hand it to any legislature that applauds Napoleon Dynamite for featuring "chickens with large talons."

Happy Beckett's birthday

In honor of Samuel Beckett's birth 99 years ago today, I pass along Waiting for Godot in various modes:

Christian:
Let us turn to the play, Waiting For Godot, which has an important message for us. Who is this Godot that these people are waiting for? Is it not clearly God? What this is play is showing us is that people who only wait for God, who do not welcome Him into their hearts, lead meaningless lives of quiet desperation.

Marxist:
Waiting For Godot is an essential parable of the class struggle. On one side we have the ultimate capitalist, Godot, remote, invisible, powerful, whose caprices dictate trivia in the lives of the working class. On the other hand we have representatives of the working class, alienated, leading meaningless lives at the behest and convenience of the Capitalist class. This play shows what happens when the working class does not unite.

Freudian:
Waiting For Godot is a rationalized dream scene which symbolically expresses the fundamental nature of separation anxiety. Off stage we have the absent parent, all powerful, loved and needed, but not present. On stage we have avatars of the essential child, neurotically cycling through different defense mechanisms.
. . .

I must be happy, he said, it is less pleasant than I should have thought.
–Malone Dies

They shoot kitty cats, don't they?

Falling into the category of gratitude fuel is the news that cat hunting may soon become legal in Wisconsin. True, here in California we may hunt feral pigs, but we leave the cats to the coyotes.

I lived in Wisconsin for more than ten years, and at no point did people stop saying, "You're not from here, are you?" And this was the scene in my former "hometown" yesterday:

At a rally in Madison on Monday, scores of cat fans gathered around protest signs. Some featured photographs of kittens and pleas written in blood-red ink: "Please don't kill me!"

At least a thousand men and women — some in camouflage shirts and hunter-orange ball caps, others with "Free the Cats!" T-shirts — crammed into chairs and squeezed onto the carpet inside a meeting hall at the Alliant Energy Center.

For more than an hour, the residents debated. Some people were so upset, they cried. Others left in disgust. Jim White, a hunter from Belleville, Wis., was simply flabbergasted.

"People shoot cats. It's just the way things are out here," said White, who attended the meeting wearing a T-shirt that read "I do what the voices in my tree stand tell me to do."

"Why is this coming as a surprise?" White asked.

Nearby, Carolyn Pagel fiddled with the fabric cat ears perched on the top of her head and listened in horror.

"We're talking about cats," said Pagel, 28. "They purr. They want love. How can you possibly want to hunt a kitty?"

"I do what the voices in my tree stand tell me to do..."

I'm just sayin'...I'm glad I moved.